The Willow Pond. Mervyn Linford
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all of us at once. He was aware that whatever our motives were for peering and poking around his store, they were certainly not honourable. Once we felt that we’d raised him to the necessary pitch of suspicion, one of the assembled throng would ask for a half-a-crown’s worth of tuppenny-canons. As quick and backward glancing as he was in his efforts to fulfil the order without losing sight of us, there was always that heart-thumping seemingly infinitesimal moment when observer and observed were eclipsed. In that blinding instant pockets were stashed with blackjacks, fruit-salads, liquorice-pipes, gob-stoppers and anything else that would stick like an accusation to our sugary fingers. He must have known. The look of feigned innocence simpering across our un-scrubbed faces must have been as transparent to him as the centuries of unjustifiable persecution suffered by the descendants of Abraham and the twelve tribes.
Having acquired sweets and tuppenny-canons on occasions such as those - whether en mass or in ones and twos - that virtual Diaspora of insensitive gentiles scattered like chaff to the four winds. Wherever they settled the sound of peardrops and spearmint-pips being ground between ruminating molars pervaded the atmosphere. And of course, the black, saltpetered grist to their nefarious mills bristled with fuses from the bulging precincts of their explosive pockets. For Eddy and myself - near inseparable partners in the pursuit of crime - the first objective was the procurement of milk-bottles. To that end raids were carried out on the unsuspecting doorsteps of innocent plotlanders. From there - with our best scrumping jumpers full to overflowing with their vitreous contents - we made our way to the secluded acres of our own private atoll. Testing was about to begin. First, one banger was lighted and dropped into the open neck of a bottle. We retired into cover and awaited results. The fuse caught and a shower of sparks issued forth. A liquefied white smoke spilt from the lip of the bottle like the ghostly dregs of milk drunk long ago. Bang!! A somewhat muted and hollow explosion admittedly, but interesting enough nevertheless. Next, two bangers were inserted with a blob of clay as a stopper. Poohf! Even more muffled, and clouded by the confinement of vapours. But at least the bottle had cracked. That was far more promising. Finally, three bangers were used, sans clay. Crack!!! Splinters and shards of glass were blasted in all directions. Exciting? Perhaps. But for experts in the arts of warfare it was still too tame. Eddy suggested that we repair to his father’s workshop. That brick-built, asbestos-roofed shed - connected to the house by a glass-covered walkway - was an Ali Baba’s cave to the more than forty thieving rascals who lived in that unsavoury neighbourhood. Eddy’s father was a bit of a whizz when it came to tinkering. To us children he was a Merlin of the machine shop. It seemed that he could make or mend anything, and the fixtures, fittings, and variety of tools lying about in that den of mechanical demonology, proved it. Everything that we needed was there. Half-inch diameter gas-pipe, block-ended bends, three-eighth threaded metal plugs, a vice and a power drill. Considering our tender years we were as adept and efficient as any indentured gunsmiths. If our existence had been more widely known, I’m sure that the Birmingham Small Arms Factory itself would have made us offers of employment. Tubing was cut to the required lengths, one end of each section being died, greased and bound with string. Tapped and threaded bends of the correct diameter were then screwed tightly into position. Those - by now weapon-shaped artifacts - were clamped one at a time into the vice to have a small aperture drilled into the top of each bend. That was all there was to it. The resultant six-inch pipe-guns were deadly. Wadding was crammed into them. The fuse removed from a banger was inserted into the small, drilled hole, and then the powdery black contents of the firework were poured carefully into the barrel. More wadding was added, followed by one of the three-eighth metal plugs. Finally, just enough more wadding was inserted to hold the metal plug firmly in place. Everything was ready. All we needed now was a target. A galvanized bucket was secured and set up at the end of the garden. I held the gun at arm’s length - just as I’d seen the duelists doing at Saturday morning flicks - and Eddy lit the fuse with one of those wonderful, green-glowing matches so redolent of the Guy-Fawke’s season. Crasssh!!! The explosion was deafening and reverberant, and the instant recoil as near as damn it bone shattering. Hopping around in a hot-footed, foul-mouthed manner, shaking and blowing my sizzled fingers, whilst at the same time shrieking with gales of nervous laughter, I moved off with Eddy to inspect the damage. A starburst with a half-inch aperture was emblazoned where the projectile had entered the bucket. On the opposite side a great, gaping, jagged orifice had been rent completely out by the secondary impact. That was the firepower afforded the most undisciplined army to have ravaged in the area since the drug-crazed Berserkers of our infamous past. Nothing, whether furred or feathered, scaled or skinned, would be certain of safety while there was enough powder to charge the muzzles of those unchallengeable weapons.
At last the big day arrived. Sometimes on those longed-for occasions the weather was kind, those classic November days fondly remembered and yet somehow nostalgically enhanced by the deficiencies of memory and distance. Those misty and sun-hazy autumnal days, followed by fog-frosted, potato-roasting, buttery, starlit nights. Invariably however, November the Fifth was the culmination of the longest period of web-footed inclemency since St Swithin slipped on the bath-soap and flooded the entire bishopric. It was one of those days, a squelching, soggy, rain-slanted morass of a treasonable day. It was the quintessence of damp-squibedness. The clouds oppressed with their continuous weight of southwesterly nimbostratus. That unwanted cargo of H2O multiplied to the power of infinity, extinguished the fires of our hopes with an incessant, down-streaming, diagonal drench. Forlorn behind my hand-wiped, rain-runnelled window, I looked out upon the dismal scene. It was the Jewish shopkeeper’s revenge. In my childish imagination I could almost hear the rending of cloth. Very God himself had deserted me. It was indeed the fate of the damned.
By late afternoon the rain had eased. A light, all moistening drizzle dampened my hair and trickled down my face with all the effectiveness of Japanese water-torture as I prodded about at the sodden edges of the bonfire. The chances of Guido-Fawkes being engulfed in celebratory flames seemed further away than the combustive brandy on the Christmas pudding. The day continued to drag its soaking feet for what seemed to the impatience of youth an eternity. Eventually darkness fell and adults were pestered into becoming a part of something that they had up until now been totally excluded from. They were the combustion men, the ignis fatuus - the spontaneous jack-o-lantern men performing their miraculous duties. Those can-carrying torchbearers were for once in their lives heroes to be admired. Forgiven were all the cuffs and cantankerousness suffered throughout the preceding months. Wads of dry newspaper were thrust with long poles into the heart of the bonfire. Petrol liberally sprinkled into and around the circumference of the sacrificial piles. Torches were thrown and results waited for. Usually after a number of unsuccessful and disappointing attempts - accompanied by sighs and the re-charging of dry paper and kindling - the flames would hold amidst the cheers of the surrounding war party. Boxes were opened and children admonished for getting too close to them. Unknown to the guardians of our safety most of us had our own secret supplies concealed about our person. While parents concerned themselves with setting light to fireworks and the serious business of policing the perimeter of the bonfire, the warring factions sent out their scouting parties. The favourite weapon on those sorties was the Roman candle. They could be held in a gloved hand and aimed purposefully at the enemy. Like the popular song of the same name, ‘Great Balls of Fire’, their heavenward trajectory curved like tracer bullets across the night sky. Unfortunate warriors struck down by stray rounds out of the meteoric rise and fall of that deadly Daneon Shower were to be seen rolling around in the wet grass screaming for mercy. White flags were for wimps. No namby-pamby suing for terms would be tolerated in this man’s army. The first assault was followed up swiftly by a barrage of tuppenny-canons, jumping-jacks and ear-splitting squibs, intent on their own serendipitous trajectories. While that was going on the oohs and aahs of the less rebellious children could be heard in the wake of star-scattering rockets and diminutive Mount Etnas spitting and spluttering through their streams of lava and smoke. The night was a riot of sound and unaccountable colour. Despite all the previous rain-soaked fears it was to be considered as a success. Except that is for one poor lad, who in the absence of the necessary years required for the build up of practical knowledge, had decided in his naivety that Swan-Vestas and bangers could share the same pocket with impunity. Events were to prove him mistaken. On tripping over while frantically waving handfuls of sparklers in the air the offending pocket and a knob of hard earth made acquaintance with each other. On impact the Swan-Vestas ignited, these in turn - as is the usual